The Dying City
by A Flamboyant Intruder
Summary: After setting the TARDIS to 'random' the Doctor and Jamie arrive on a distant planet, desperately battling a deadly plague. The police have taken over since the government crumbled, and they are taking some extreme measures, leading the Doctor to meet one of his most evil enemies...
1. A Dying City

"Well... I think that's it done now!"

"It's still dark, Doctor. I can't see a thing!"

"Oh? Damn. Something in the... what's it called..."

The usually bright and welcoming interior of the TARDIS was pitch dark. The Doctor was fiddling about with the ancient wiring and director boards – every time this happened, something went wrong. On this particular occasion, it was the lights. But last time the time manipulator pump had gone awry and the time before that the oxygen distributor's sectional computing mechanism decided to stop working!

"Right! Don't worry! Oh yes... Maybe you should worry..."

Sparks went flying from the hatch the Doctor had opened in the floor of the TARDIS.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes! Jolly fine! Oh dear... No, wait... Bingo! Got it!"

Finally the lights came back on and everything whirred to life yet again.

"Are we good to go then?" Jamie asked, looking very impatient.

"Yes, I believe so... sorry about that, Jamie..." The Doctor replied, looking rather sheepish, "But we're definitely good to go now! Let's just take the old girl for a test spin!"

He pranced over to the main console of the TARDIS, fiddling with various buttons and dials.

"Righty-ho. Time... random. Location... random. There we go!"

The Doctor thrust a lever down and the TARDIS shook and groaned. Jamie raised an eyebrow. But after a few seconds of these disturbing noises, the TARDIS finally returned to it's normal, comforting noises. Well, Jamie was had always found the take-off noises the time ship made rather scary. It made unearthly screaches and squeals, before a final wavering sound emitted.

Suddenly the TARDIS made a 'dud-ump' noise, signalling it had made contact with the ground.

"Ohhh! I wonder where we've landed?" The Doctor said as he opened the doors and hopped out.

Jamie followed, and was immediately disappointed.

"London? Again? Doctor, set it to random and try again!"

But when Jamie bothered to look around a bit more, he noticed there was something oddly alien about this place. The buildings were made of brick, and looked fairly neglected; weeds and mosses trailed down the walls, lichen in the grooves between the bricks. What was strange was the massive cliffs in the far, far distance. Huge things that curled around on themselves. They looked slightly blue they were so far away.

"Doctor... where are we?" Jamie asked, considerably more interested now.

"Definitely not London, that's for sure. Hmm. I think we've arrived in an abandoned back garden of sorts," The Doctor said eagerly, "I think there's a way to a high street over there."

The Doctor waved in the vague direction right in front of them. He locked the TARDIS, gave Jamie a spare set of keys (as usual) and they trudged off to the gap in the brick wall facing the TARDIS' doors.

And sure enough it led into a street. It was overgrown too. It was deserted. It's pavements were made of old cobbles, the street of cracked asphalt. To the right the street led on; on the left a building had fallen in and scattered itself across the road, and small chainlink fence with a sign reading 'Closed until further notice!'.

They headed down the passable way. The buildings looked like they were from Earth, around the 1960s or 1970s. But it wasn't Earth they were on. The Doctor just had a feeling they were on another planet. And, of course, last time the Doctor looked there hadn't been those alien looking cliffs jutting out in the distance.

A lot of the buildings look dilapidated and unloved. Plaster had fallen away and crumbled on the street below; paint was flaking off; vines and moss were slowly climbing up gutters and door frames.

"Doctor... I think this is a ghost town... or a ghost city..." Jamie said, nervously. He didn't like this place. It gave him the creeps. Something about it.

"I don't think so," The Doctor replied, quietly, "listen carefully..."

They both stopped moving down the street they had just turned on to, Jamie squinting, as if that'd help. But the Doctor was right. The faint but unmistakable sounds of bustle drifted ahead of them, along the street they were walking. Cars, the low hum of street chat, a faint siren.

"Yes. I'm sure I can here something. Do you think it's ahead?" Jamie said.

"I think so too. Let's carry on."

They carried on walking. At the end of the long street another one opened up; a row of buildings where the road had been going. Two streets snaked around the interrupting terrace of houses. They went on the right side of the row, and sure enough there seemed to be human activity.

A fence blocked their way forwards. It had somebody in what looked like a police uniform on the other side, watching the street from his side. He heard the Doctor and Jamie, and turned around, holding up a large automatic rifle.

"Stay back!" He shouted frantically, "Help! We've got some over here!"

"Wait! Don't shoot!" Jamie said, his voice echoing against the ruined buildings.

The man seemed to become less tense and held his rifle a little lower, but he still had his finger on the trigger.

"Well, at least you aren't definitely infected." He replied, "But don't come any closer. Not yet."

Some other policemen came along, in pale blue livery, also with guns. A van trundled into view; it read 'TSS' on it's armoured sides.

"Infected? What? Excuse me, we've just arrived here." The Doctor chipped in cheerily, "What's been going on?"

"Impossible. This planet is under strict quarantine." The policeman shouted back.

Suddenly a radio on his belt chattered and beeped into life. He picked it off it's hook, a wire trailing after it as he brought it to his mouth, holding the huge rifle in one hand.

"Yes... two survivors... no we don't know if they're – what? No... they say they've just come here," The man glanced back up at the Doctor and Jamie, "Fine, we'll let them in for testing."

The fence lifted upwards on some sort of hydraulics suspended on the roofs of the terraces that surrounded the sides of the street. It groaned and vibrated, the chain linking hissing as it rattle together from the force of being jolted upwards.

The man gestured for the Doctor and Jamie to come forwards. They did, slowly, and when they got there he whipped out a kind of syringe with a little screen attached to it. The actual 'syringe' part was stubby and thick. He skilfully jabbed it against Jamie's arm, and then the Doctors.

The curious device made a cheerful beep, and the man sighed and put it back in his belt.

"You're clear. Not infected. How did you survive out there?" The policeman asked, relieved but bewildered.

"Survive out there? What do you mean? We just taking a stroll around the city-"

"In the infected zone. How did you live? There's meant to be hordes of them out there. We've slowly had to fall back further into the city, they claim more and more of it every few weeks. One day, they'll be nothing left. Unless the infection wears off or somebody gets a cure or Earth actually sends help!" The man glanced up at the sky, as if he was glaring at the Earth authorities.

"Ah! An Earth colony." The Doctor chirped, giving a knowing glance to Jamie.

"Of course... Anyway, this infection means the entire planet is under quarantine. I haven't seen you before."

"Tell me about this infection..."

"You mean, you haven't heard about it? You truly must have just arrived here!" The man looked nervous, "Well, we arrived here and set up the main colony, out of bricks as you see... Earth wanted this to be a pretty little place. Then the infection came. We don't know from where, but it... it drove people mad. Psychotic. Erratic. You could call it a zombie plague, in effect. We have no idea where it's come from, but every day we lose more territory in our own city! We try to close off the streets and sewers... but there's always an overlooked area or a defence not staffed well enough."

The Doctor and Jamie exchanged nervous glances.

"Well, we better be getting back to our ship then." The Doctor said.

"Yes, I think so too!" Jamie added, getting ready to walk away.

"I can't let that happen! If you really do have a ship, you could be spreading the virus all over the Alliance's planets. Even though Earth has ignored us all these months, I have to upkeep the quarantine. And anyway, you're lucky to have survived being out there! Most times we send out squads to try and recover even a single street, well... they don't return."

"So, we're trapped?" The Doctor asked, twiddling his thumbs.

"I'm afraid so, Mr... Sorry, what's your name?"

"Em, well, yes, I'm Doctor... em... Smith, and this is my apprentice..."

"I'm Jamie, nice to meet you!" Jamie said, thrusting out a hand for shaking.

The policeman ignored the offer, recoiling at the thought of shaking hands.

"Remember to stay hygienic! We can't let any diseases break out here, we've got enough to deal with!"

The Doctor and Jamie explored the streets that were still left; it was a good mile or so in diameter, with a big castle like structure in the centre, which they found out to be the Police HQ. In this town, the police seemed to rule it since the government collapsed and contact was lost with Earth because of the isolating quarantine.

The Doctor kept plotting ways to get back to the TARDIS, but he didn't feel like taking his chances with zombies. He had, on two occasions, encountered such a plague in his travels and he certainly didn't want to cross paths with it again! They must have been very lucky.

But there was talk of people disappearing. District after district had been overrun, but almost (it seemed) systematically. Every five weeks another district would be 'overrun'; no survivors. This was the last district, and it had survive for about eight weeks since the last area fell. It was well overdue.

And while the Doctor and Jamie slept at their respective rooms in the abandoned house they'd been given, they could hear people moving. Things moving, at least. There was a curfew from 9pm to 7am, and police patrolled the streets. But it wasn't them. The things that moved in the night... marched.

It was late at night on the last streets of the dying city. A few policemen had been called out, to guard the area in case of anything. These were the military police; second only to the Elite Police, which were being tested...

The military police were clones, bred on Earth and shipped around the Alliance to keep the order. Their left hands had been severed off, surgically, to make way for a powerful gun inserted into their flesh. Some said it was immoral, and that one day all soldiers and police would be made of electronic parts, with only brains showing their humanity.

But the Police Development Department's Division C Team were assured the Elite Police were just robotic. Some of them wondered if one day brains would be inserted into them. Some wondered if there were brains inside of them already...

The back of the truck opened, the metal booming as it made contact with the cold street.

They marched out, perfectly in sync, blank metal faces seemingly staring into the middle distance, as if they were zombies themselves.

"Well, you certainly got the transmission issues fixed Kertin. Well done. These models are great."

Kertin beamed at his latest development in the Elite Police, C Division's latest task to help wrest control of the population. The man who had complimented him was called Dr Cowling. His shy assistant, Ms Port, chipped in.

"Yes, these new models are almost ready for... well, you know. But... I don't think it's right. I mean, even if subjects would consent to it, I just feel..." She trailed off, her breath visible against the chilled night air.

"Don't talk about that in public! Even the military police can't know about it. Top secret!" Dr Cowling hissed.

"Sorry sir... I'm just concerned."

"I'm sure we all were at one point," Kertin interjected, "but I'm sure these will lead us to victory against the infection! The problem is, our current soldiers can get infected. When you're plastic and steel... well... that's another story!"

He clenched a fist. He had lost his wife and two children to the infection, and he would do anything it took to get is revenge.

"Forward two step then due right!" Dr Cowling barked, and then metal men marched out of the truck and forwards, the transparent handles on their steel skulls distorting and magnifying the rear lights of the their transport lorry.

"Very good! Who are you, and what do you serve?"

"We are the Elite Police. We serve the mighty Earth Alliance, to battle the infection that has wrecked this planet. We serve the people and the government's services. We serve justice." The leading Elite Police unit declared in it's emotionless, grating voice.

"Excellent! Tomorrow we shall start work on the brain transplants... I've got a few subjects in mind who'd be willing to help out. Go back into the truck Elite Police units!" Dr Cowling said, as he turned on his heel, heading back to HQ.

"But sir! We need permission!" Ms Port yelled.

"We already have it. In advance, you see. We must act quickly!"

Kertin and, eventually, Ms Port followed Dr Cowling.


	2. Police HQ

The next day the Doctor and Jamie were sitting outside the last café open in town. The Doctor was looking uncomfortable, yet again plotting on how they were going to get back to the TARDIS. But, unfortunately, the chances of them escaping seemed bleak. Every exit from the last, fortified district was heavily guarded. And nobody was let out, well, civilians at least.

"Doctor... What are these clone things... and they all have no left hands!" Jamie whispered, glancing towards a couple of military police, "Are they robots?"

The Doctor's face darkened as he noticed them walk by.

"No. They were bred, in biological facilities on Earth. Their hands are surgically removed and some sort of pressurized air gun in stuck into their flesh... and they're all zealous for their cause. If they're used in battles, they are often cannon fodder. Highly immoral." The Doctor replied.

"Hey!" Jamie shouted, over at the military police, "What're you doing?"

"Don't, Jamie! Don't provoke them!" The Doctor hissed, but it was too late.

The two military police ambled over.

"Trouble, citizens?"

"I was just wondering where you're from."

They exchanged looks.

"Classified. Is there a problem you need police help with?"

They sounded fairly blank, as if they had no emotions. The Doctor remembered something he had been meaning to ask at Police HQ, but felt he should now.

"Have you ever seen any...of these infected? I mean,actually seen one?" The Doctor asked, brow furrowed.

"No. No infected. But they're out there. We lose men every few days to them."

"But do you hear their screams? Their struggles? Anything over the radio even?"

"The only people who see the infected are police squads sent to try and recover districts or recover a few streets. They are far away, we cannot hear them. But we are low on men. We are now using alternative methods."

"Alternative?"

"The Elite Police units will be deployed sometime tomorrow. They will enforce the population which is becoming nervous and attempt to recover a district South of here."

The clones walked off on their patrol route again, and when they were out of earshot the Doctor snapped around to Jamie.

"There's something going on here. Didn't you hear? They've never seen infected. And we didn't see any. What, there must be about five percent of the original population living here now? So where are all the infected people?" The Doctor said, "And why do squads keep go missing? Nobody can hear their screams or gunfire in neighbouring districts, yet when we were at the other end of one we could at least vaguely hear soft noises, like people speaking and cars moving."

As he said this, a police van rumbled by, the sun glinting off it's dark blue gloss paint.

"It's like the police rule this town..." Jamie commented.

"I think they actually do... Well, you know the government collapsed here. The only forces left were the police, so they just took over where the government left off."

"And who are these Elite Police? What'll make them different?"

"I'm not sure. Perhaps it's some sort of special training? Either way, this is looking very suspicious. These people are getting very desperate, after all..."

"Should we go to Police HQ? Pose as inspectors or something?"

"That may be a good idea, but unfortunately the quarantine means that no inspectors would be coming here to... inspect."

Jamie looked disappointed, but kept on thinking. He was curious to see what the Elite Police were. Some said they would be the saviour of the city. But how? What would they bring to the table that would change things?

Then suddenly an idea sprang to mind.

"Why don't we say we are inspectors, but we've been under cover? The quarantine is about to be lifted, but we wanted to make sure that everything was okay!"

The Doctor leapt to his feet.

"Excellent idea! I had the sense to take the physic paper with me this time. Quick! Where's Police HQ? Ah yes, that big castle thing on the horizon! Onwards, Jamie!"

The Police HQ was a hulking, fortified building; it did indeed look like a castle or fortress. It had wall gun emplacements, and a perimeter chain link fence that had signs screaming 'ELECTRIFIED' and 'KEEP OUT'. Luckily there was a front entrance with some guards. After the Doctor waved his physic paper and told them the quarantine would soon be over, they were more than happy to let him and Jamie past.

"We're here to see the new Elite Police models, could you take me to them?" The Doctor asked the secretary.

"I'll take you to C Division's lab, this way please."

She led them down a flight of stairs, below ground level. The castle was only a tiny part of the Police's base; a subterranean fortress fanned out for nearly a kilometre underneath it. Eventually the stairs ended and they entered a large, sleek corridor. A massive contrast from the dilapidated brick housing of the city. The interior was a shiny white, with yellow and black stripes at the edges of the large corridors for no apparent reason.

Finally they got to C Division. Their laboratory was just off one of the large and brighter corridors, and the secretary abandoned them as soon as the Doctor and Jamie stepped inside.

"Hello? Anybody home? We're inspectors, from Earth. We want to see your plans for the Elite Police!" The Doctor shouted.

Suddenly Kertin came out of a side room.

"Inspectors? Is the quarantine being lifted?"

"Em... Soon. We just need to... inspect a few things first." Jamie replied, casually.

"Oh! Of course. Come this way... You said something about the Elite Police?" He said as he led them through the warren-like labs of C Division, "Well they are almost complete! With their power we shall destroy the infected and bring peace once more to this world!"

"Are you planning on integrating the Elite Police into the main force?" The Doctor asked.

"Oh yes! They have been shown to be highly effective at both military purposes and civilian control in testing, after this ghastly quarantine is lifted we'll ask permission to ship them off to Earth and the Alliance colonies immediately." He ranted in a proud tone, "They will be the envy of the other races! I understand the Plurgons from the moon of Zoniaz were trying to develop something similar."

"So what are they exactly?" Jamie queried, nervously.

"By any definition, semi-biological mechanical component self controlled units."

"In English?"

Kertin glowered at Jamie.

"Well, plainly: half mechanical half biological. Well, you'll see in a minute. Oh, and we haven't told the public that yet. They just think they're robots or something. That'll soon change!"

The Doctor and Jamie exchanged nervous glances. Half mechanical, half biological? It sounded eerily familiar.

"Gentlemen, Ms Port, our mechanical engineering chief, Doctor Cowling, our project leader and biological/mechanical integration specialist, and our latest Elite Police unit!"

Ms Port and Doctor Cowling nodded and said hello, but the Doctor and Jamie weren't interested, for behind a reinforced glass wall, attached to some pipes and wiring that went into the ceiling, sat a cyberman on a chair. It stared blankly into the middle distance, unphased by the arrival of it's race's greatest enemy.

"That... that's... no, this is being decommissioned!" The Doctor whipped around to face Dr Cowling, "You have to discontinue this immediately!"

Dr Cowling and Ms Port exchanged worried looks and Kertin looks openly offended.

"Well, this technology was ordered to be developed by Earth High Command..."

"What? Well, interests have changed!" The Doctor shouted, and leant in close to Dr Cowling, "What you are doing is immoral and disgusting! And anyway, these are not of human creation..."

"Excuse me? I was there when the first prototype was assembled."

"You may think that... but it wasn't the first one... these look like Mark II or Mark III models..."

"Inspector, these aren't even the final version. I don't know what you are playing at."

"Switch it on and I'll show you what I mean!"

"It is on. Ask it something, there's an input panel over there." Doctor Cowling gestured to a screen posed at an angle on the glass wall.

The Doctor furiously pressed a button and barked into the microphone.

"Look! It's me, the Doctor! Yoo-hoooo! Anybody home?"

The cyberman slowly looked up and replied in it's grating voice.

"Doctor. You are an unidentified worker. Doctor, who?"

"Oh stop playing that game! You know who it is, so stop acting! Just kill me now you have the chance!"

The cyberman stared on blankly, returning it's metal head a few inches back to it's original position.

"Doctor... Sorry, what is your name?" Said Kertin.

"What was it again... ah yes, Doctor Smith. What is it?"

"Well, Doctor Smith, this model isn't complete. See those wires? It's hooked up to a central mainframe computer. It's just an interface now. When we insert the subject into it, it will not need the computer to aid it."

The Doctor calmed down a bit, but he still had his guard up. Perhaps this cyberman truly was wired up to a central computer. But he doubted it. Despite having no emotions or morals, the cybermen were damn good at acting.

"The Elite Police with... biological components will be implemented into service tomorrow at noon. Come to the town square for a demonstration. We only have five models, including this one, and five... biological components as of now, but we hope to change that!"

The Doctor stormed out, "Let's go, Jamie... leave these rats in their stupid tunnels!", trying to think of a way to show these people the truth. And he was suspecting there was no plague, and that the people missing weren't... entirely dead.


	3. Elite Police Units

The following day there had been eighteen 'accidents' by midday. A tram came round a corner, completely off schedule hitting four people, killing them. Their bodies were taken away in an unmarked van. Somebody committed suicide; except he had shown no signs of depression just the night before.

The Doctor knew what was happening; C Division needed more organic components. He was nervous, as was Jamie, the entire day, always looking for an unexpected car or tram to come out of nowhere. Now they were in the district's town square, and a blue police van pulled in to the open space, a nice difference from the pokey streets of the city.

The remaining population was gathered around, excited to see the proposed solution to the infection that had destroyed the town.

Darrus Kasper, the current head of police, had even come down to show off C Division's hard work. He wore a long, black trench coat making him look like someone who came round to your house when you complained in public about the government's tax hike.

Today, however, he seemed quite jolly. It was a bright, sunny day and the blood had been cleared from the pavements from the early morning's unfortunate events. His grey beard flapped in the pleasant breeze.

"Today, I announce our saviours! The new device for the police that will rid our great city and indeed our planet of the infection!" He said in his booming voice, "The... Elite Police!"

The door of the truck opened and the 'Elite Police' stomped out, skull like faces staring at the crowds, the sunlight dancing off their hefty chest units and transparent piping.

The crowd cheered wildly.

"These are volunteers from our own police forces... Yes! That is correct! These are not robots or even exo-suits..." He addressed the crowd, dramatically, "These are men of steel!"

The crowd's wild cheering reduced. They were confused at what he meant.

"This is Officer Trazyat, I hope you remember him. He guarded the Northern perimeter against the infected and preformed dangerous repairs, he did a great service to our amazing city." Darrus said, nodding to the lead Elite Policeman, "Officer Trazyat donated his brain and his blood. He donated some of his flesh and muscle. Officer Trazyat has been promoted, ladies and gentlemen!"

The crowd was silent, astonished as it processed the information.

"The Elite Police never grow old, they cannot be infected. They are invincible!"

The Doctor was going to seize his chance to try and address the crowd and was just drawing in a deep breath to announce to the citizens how immoral and sickening the whole thing was when he was utterly drowned out by wild cheering.

He was bewildered. Then again, the people must have been desperate, but even so...

"Jamie, I think we should go now..."

"Right you are, Doctor."

They left the square, and the Doctor decided to plan what to do next over a spot of lunch.

Meanwhile, back in the square the Elite Police fanned out on their public trial patrols. The public cheered and hugged each other and screamed as the old captains and officers had become something so much better – men of steel and plastic, who would live for eternity.

Darrus Kasper turned around the Ms Port, Kertin and Doctor Cowling, who had been standing at the back of the scene, beaming at their achievement.

"Well done! I didn't know how they'd take it, but they did, and at that very well!" Darrus said, grinning wildly. "We might just pull through this! Well done."

"Shall we promote some more officers? I had Captain Ignar in mind, he's been getting shifty about the Elite Police programme lately." Said Kertin without a second thought for the poor man.

"Good idea. We need as many of these things as possible."

Back at the café, an Elite Policeman walked past. The Doctor got out his sonic screwdriver and quickly turned it on and off again, whipping it back into his pocket. The Elite Policeman didn't seem to notice, which was lucky.

The Doctor took a reading from the device and his eyes widened.

"They must have a ship or a space station in orbit! That one over there was sending transmissions..." He nodded over in the direction of the passing Elite Policeman.

"Well, can you decode them? I mean, find out what they're saying?" Jamie asked.

"Sorry. I'm afraid this just isn't designed for that." He shook the screwdriver, as if that'd decode the messages being sent.

"I wonder... Well, I think it's all falling into place now, actually." The Doctor said gravely, after a short pause. "This just feels like a big damn social experiment, like we're mice in a laboratory's cage."

"Well, the infection isn't real. Or at least it's gone away." Jamie said.

"Good point, I had considered it had never been here, but perhaps the cybermen engineered it to die out quickly, to reinforce the belief it was there without damaging too much of their... future stock."

The Doctor pondered on this and then returned to his other point.

"Anyway, we've got to stop the cybermen. Soon the 'Elite Police' will turn on their masters and start converting the population..."

"But didn't Doctor Cowling say something about making them go into the main police force?" Jamie asked.

"Oh, you're right. They might be planning to take the entire Earth Alliance from within. This is more serious than I though, oh dear..." The Doctor twittered.

Another Elite Policeman trudged by.

"I remember on their home planet, Mondas, they started doing what the police are doing here right now. Putting spare parts on themselves so they could live for as long as possible in their last city, a dingy cavern... their planet went flying off into space, it used to be in the Solar System. They started sending work parties up to the surface to build engines so they could get back – I'm a little fuzzy on the details, I only went there once and it was when it was still a lovely, lush planet. They had giant lizards, a bit like on Earth at the time. They were quite passive though..."

"Should we go to the Police HQ and try to destroy the... well, the machines that make the cybermen?"

"No, no, no, I doubt they'd be there. Probably outside of the district, to capture those squads of soldiers the police send out to try and recover a district."

"Well we've tried to escape for days now and there's no way, especially with the cybermen around!"

"We'll see about that... I think I have something up my sleeve..."

"Captain Ignar... Oh there you are." Said Kertin, Ms Port trailing behind him. She didn't like what they were about to do. She wanted to pull out... but when the quarantine was lifted she could. Right now they'd lynch her if she spoke against it too much.

Captain Ignar was guarding a ramshackle wall defence, about four meters tall and made of old crates and planks nailed together, with a ladder on one side so the police could keep a watch. The Captain had been getting quite nervous the past few days. He didn't like what was going on – his men went missing, yet he saw no infected, he heard nothing over the radios when they were sent outside of the safety zone.

He was starting to doubt his superiors. Little did he know, doubt meant death in that town.

"Oh, Kertin... Please don't tell me your bringing your horrible Elite things over here..."

His men got into position, a ramshackle band of military police and volunteer militia.

"Don't worry, you're being promoted." Kertin announced, cheerily.

After all these months of hard work, and finally his work had been noticed. He was elated.

"Just come to Police HQ with myself and Ms Port, and all will be fine."

Ignar nodded to his men and said he'd be back soon, once his papers and new uniform were sorted out. But his new uniform would merge with his skin, rip out most of his internal organs and turn him into an emotionless, near indestructible, immortal _cyberman! _


	4. The Cybermen Make Their Move

The next day was rainy and cold. The sky was wet and grey, and the usually fairly busy little streets looked deserted. The café was closed. It was the perfect opportunity to go out scouting, beyond the district's defences.

The Doctor and Jamie managed to get past entirely by luck; all but one of the soldiers guarding a small defence went over to HQ for a free promotion that had been announced for any one who asked for it, to Elite Police status. They thought it was an exo-suit. They hadn't been at the public announcement.

The man left behind was underneath a tarpaulin sheet, draped over him as he huddled a cup of boiling water (the tea and coffee and chocolate supplies ran out years ago). Knocking him out was easy. The Doctor and Jamie swiftly opened the ramshackle wooden door of the little defensive barrier out onto the streets of the old city.

After all the talk of the infected, they were both slightly worried. The rain's low visibility made them jump at every little noise. Jamie had stolen the handgun from the man they knocked out, just in case. The Doctor's sonic screwdriver wouldn't save them from a horde of zombies.

But as they went deeper and deeper into the city, they saw nothing. There was, admittedly, a dead body here or there, rotting away. Usually they just looked like civilians; looters to be more precise, a few with sacks full of tinned food, a crowbar. Most looked like they'd been shot, probably by the police for looting. Others looked like they had died of starvation or thirst.

As they went down the streets, slick from the downpour, more and more abandoned vehicles and broken defences greeter them. Some ramshackle, like the one they exited the last district from. Others were more sophisticated, with triple layered chainlink fencing and little batteries wired up to the metal frames to electrify them.

But eventually, they saw it. Perhaps they'd passed more of them on the way, more discreetly hidden. But there it was.

It was in the basement of a building. The Doctor and Jamie only noticed it because it was one of those exposed basements, with useless windows facing a solid concrete wall a couple of feet away. Jamie gulped, the Doctor straightened his bow-tie, and they walked over to it.

It had a little transmitter in the depression where the door was. Clearly it was cyber technology, and it's transmissions could reach orbit. The Doctor ran his sonic screwdriver over it. Not much of a response. The transmitter was heavily fortified; hacking it would be impossible, at least with the screwdriver.

So the Doctor and Jamie crept down the steps to the basement, opening the black door that led into it. Inside it was dark, but Jamie found a light switch.

He wished he hadn't.

Piled high on one side, row after row of jars sat atop each other. Each was filled with a strange, light green liquid, and floating in this mixture was a human brain. A little machine whirred at the far end of this ghastly display, making the tanks bubble, presumably keeping the brain tissue alive.

At the other side of the room were cold lockers. Inside them were frozen slabs of human muscle, tissue and mechanical devices with flesh crudely slapped onto them.

Jamie felt like throwing up. To the back of the room, there were cyberman suits, helmets, piping and their metal bone frames, hung up like strange coats.

"Well, I think we've seen enough. This is where the cybermen must drag their victims. They take the squads sent out here to 'recover' a district by surprise," He turned to Jamie, "they can be very quiet when they want to be. Anyway, there must be dozens of these store houses, dotted around in the abandoned districts..."

"Doctor! There's some field notes... written by... Mr Kertin." Jamie picked up the messy pile of notes, stapled together, "Clone brains incompatible. Military police will need to be slaughtered. General police promotion is needed before we start on the civilians to battle the infection. The military police is more loyal to the citizens. If there is to be one, a civil war will need to be as quick and as bloodless as possible."

Jamie shivered, turning to the Doctor.

"We need to help these people!" He said, obviously disturbed by the grim exhibition of body parts and the creepy field notes.

"Of course! We should return now... but has Kertin been here? Is that a copy of his notes? Did they steal them? Because from what you read out, he seems to be still zealous about fighting an obviously non-existent infection."

"We must advance our plans. The Doctor knows what we are doing. He knows our ways. He must be destroyed. However, if we destroy him when they are looking they will decommission us. We must advance our plans. Contact Doctor Henrth Cowling, tell him it is Earth Command, and that the quarantine will soon be lifted if he meets a quota of Elite Police by the end of the Earth month. The condition is to promote 70% of their police force. I calculate this will be sufficient."

The ground commander, disguised as an ordinary Elite Police unit, received the message from the Cyber Planner in their starship turned space station. It began rallying the units, and marched on the Police HQ building.

The Doctor and Jamie were just coming round a corner when they were met by a group of police – no Elite Police with them, luckily. They stood in their blue livery, their long tarpaulin trench coats swaying in the brisk breeze. They had sub-machine guns and shock pistols.

"Stay where you are! You will not be allowed back into the district! You may have been infected!" The lead policeman shouted over the increasing gale and rain.

"We're not infected! Look around you! There is no infection! There never has been, you're being manipulated by a third party!" The Doctor shouted.

"The boy in the kilt, put down the gun! Now!"

Jamie cast away his pistol he had been gripping, away across the street being carried by the rain that settled on the street. It rattled as it settled in a gutter at the side of the road.

"Now stay back! You aren't allowed back in the district! Go!"

"Use the scanner for God's sake! Last time we tried to get in the police used it and it was fine!" Jamie shouted back.

"We don't have one right now! Stand down!"

"This is obviously, effectively, an execution. You're scared of outsiders. You were sent to retrieve us, and you'll come back come talking about how we were infected and how you escaped by the skin of your teeth, eh?" The Doctor said in a loud but calm voice. Then the colour drained from his face. Elite Police, or at least cybermen. Two were marching towards them. Now he knew there was no way out. There is no reasoning with cybermen.

Amazingly, the cybermen snatched the police, electrifying them until they passed out. After they had done this, one of the cybermen trudged off, dragging the bodies away for conversion or storage in one of the secret facilities.

"You will be destroyed, Doctor." The remaining cyberman said.

The Doctor slowly edged towards the gutter. Getting the idea, Jamie took over for him as not to draw too much attention. The Doctor slowly got his flake of gold from his TARDIS technology pockets. He had to rummage about a bit, losing it once or twice in the cavernous, zero-gravity room.

"Do not try to escape. You will be destroyed. Your companion will become like us."

The cyberman started walking towards them, arm outstretched to give a lethal dose of electricity.

"Now Jamie! Now!"

Jamie grabbed the gun and let off a couple of rounds. The pinged harmlessly off the cyberman's advanced armour.

"Jamie! No! Give me the gun..."

The Doctor hurriedly took out the clip, grinding the gold around the interior of it. He hoped enough gold dust would get on the bullets to make them deadly for the cybermen.

He started to walk backwards, but Jamie shouted at him and he noticed there were two cybermen advancing from behind.

Finally he inserted the clip back into the gun, clumsily took off the safety clip and fired. The shot missed, pinging off the head. He needed it to hit the chest unit. He fired another round. It hit home. The chest unit sparked and fizzed, and the cyberman jigged and twitched and spasmed until finally it gave a dying sigh, smoke escaping from it's eyes and mouth.

The Doctor gave the other cybermen a similar treatment. It seemed to be less effective, but eventually, with one bullet left, he had killed them.

"We should get back before the other one that dragged off those poor policemen returns... I've got one bullet left and I don't don't want to waste it..."

The Doctor and Jamie rushed back, through the gate they came. The team that was guarding it was still missing. The man they had knocked out was gone, too. The Doctor was hoping he hadn't raised the alarm. But the skies were starting clear and people were coming out of their homes again. The cybermen couldn't kill him while he was out in the open with people around. Hopefully.

Darrus Kasper was in his office, in on of the towers of the Police HQ's castle. He was putting some files away, getting ready to meet Commander Uios, effectively the second in command of the police, for a meeting about the mobilization of the police force into Elite Police units.

Suddenly his door opened. A cyberman appeared on the other side, taking a single step into the office.

"Elite Police units? Go back to your patrols. There's nothing wrong here." He said, concerned. Why had they burst into his room... three of them, two behind the first one that entered his office.

"You are to be promoted."

He was confused. What did it mean by 'promotion'? He couldn't think. He was the top dog – there was no promotion, not until the quarantine was lifted at least.

"Go back to your work schedule or I will call security, d'ya understand?"

"We have promoted security."

"What? Who gave you permission for that?"

"They must be promoted because we are superior units." It replied blankly.

"Commander Uios will be angry when he hears about this! He's second only to-"

"Commander Uios has been promoted. I was once Commander Uios. You will be promoted. I was scared, but now I have no fear. We are superior."

"Stay back! No! Help!"

The cybermen advanced, dragging him kicking and screaming to C Division's conversion chambers.


	5. The Eve of the War

By the time the Doctor returned to the safe district, more and more Elite Police were appearing. They were everywhere. People didn't seem to be smiling as they went past now though.

"My husband... he was with the police, but he didn't come home after his shift. It's been hours! But he wouldn't sign up for one of those Elite things, would he?"

"My daughter... have you seen her? She was at Police HQ not long ago..."

Full mobilization of the city was beginning. Most of the brains and body parts the cybermen had previously salvaged were incompatible; cloned material. Usually when a recovery party was sent out, it was of military police elements. They were only clones after all.

The Doctor felt extremely uncomfortable with so many cybermen around - but there seemed to be the stirrings of rebellion in the people. They didn't realize it'd be them being promoted to the Elite Police. A few had already set up camp outside Police HQ, demanding answers.

When the Doctor and Jamie approached, the Elite Police - or rather, cybermen - were trying to get the citizens off their turf. The Doctor flashed his physic paper and the human guards let him through. Just as the heavy doors of the entrance hall slammed shut, Jamie was sure he could hear screams and gunfire.

They were going deep into enemy territory. But the Doctor wanted to persuade Doctor Cowling and his team. He knew it may have already been too late, but he was determined not to spill blood. He did have a Plan B, but he didn't like it. Not one bit.

When he finally reached C Division, there was a shutter open, behind which a number of police personnel were being rapidly 'promoted'.

"Doctor Cowling! It's Doctor Smith... where are you!?" The Doctor shouted impatiently. He was hoping very dearly that the horrible man had not been promoted, in which case they were finished.

"Ah yes. Hello Doctor Smith."

The Doctor relaxed slightly.

"Have you been aware of a space station orbiting your planet?"

Doctor Cowling sighed.

"Doctor Smith, that is the monitoring probe sent by Earth when this ghastly plague started. They couldn't let anyone slip past the quarantine, you understand?"

"Enough with the quarantine! I bet you there never was one. And I'm sure this infection never existed! That thing you call a probe is actually a cyberman monitoring station. They have transmitters dotted all over the place. Can't you see? I heard that your boss, Mr Kasper, has already been turned into an Elite Police unit! They're taking over!"

"Doctor, two things. First of all, I ordered Darrus Kasper and his little assistants to be promoted. They are far more useful now. I am taking charge-"

"But they'll come for you as well, eventually!" Jamie interjected.

"- as I was saying, I am taking control of the situation. Second of all, yes, the infection definitely existed. Down at G Division, our biological experts still have a canister of the culture."

"You're lying!" Jamie shouted.

"Calm down Jamie," the Doctor said, trying to temper himself, "I would wish to see the culture... study it, you know. Because I think you'll find it's entirely harmless."

They trudged over to G Division, a few rooms away from C Division, across the underground fortress. Doctor Cowling opened up the door. There was nobody there.

"Where is the G Division staff? I want to discuss something with them..."

"They were promoted, Doctor Smith. But you can still have a poke around. I should send a unit to keep watch over you, though."

"Oh, that won't be necessary!" The Doctor said, hurriedly. If a cyberman was sent down, with the Doctor and Jamie alone, they'd be killed. "Keep him busy, Jamie." The Doctor said under his breath, as he rushed over to the canister marked 'infection x'.

Jamie complained and moaned to Cowling, and when that started to wear thin he asked him about his work, to which Cowling was more than happy to start a lecture about.

"Let's see..." The Doctor studied the strange blobs and strings that slowly vibrated under the lens of the microscope, "Well, it does seem like it was deadly... yes... but it is short lived in humans, too. Everyone should have an immunity now. Hmm..."

He picked up a nearby sample of the liquid used to preserve the brains of the Elite Police units that G Division had been working on. And sure enough, it was exactly as he suspected.

"The liquid has the cure to the infection integrated into it... So, perhaps..."

He pranced over to a bank of machinery and interfaces, and slid the petri dish containing the infection into it. He put some of the preservation liquid into a dripper mechanism, and fiddled with the controls.

"An hour from now the infection will target cyberman blood and preservation liquids. But they'll be here before then..." He whispered, glancing at Doctor Cowling who'd finished his lecture and was becoming suspicious of the Doctor.

"Doctor Smith, I hope you aren't trying anything funny over there, eh?"

"Nope, sorry! Yes, I seem to have been quite wrong!" He said, whipping around.

"I think Jamie and I will just wander around the laboratories a bit... Is there a bank anywhere?"

Jamie looked confused, what was the Doctor thinking of doing next? Buy his way out of the bleak situation? And then he started to become angry. Why, when they had got out of the district, had they not ran back to the TARDIS? They could have escaped, which is what they were planning all this time!

"A bank? Oh no, no no no, our last bank was two districts away. But we do have a cache of money for police purposes and the like..." Doctor Cowling said in a patronizing tone.

"Any gold? I mean, I'm just terribly interested in the economy and all."

Doctor Cowling looked suspiciously at the Doctor. What was he playing at now?

"Well, yes... a stack in the vault at the far end of the underground section of the HQ, along that way." Cowling replied, thrusting his finger down the way they'd come from C Division.

"I see..."

They parted their ways. Doctor Cowling wanted to check on the Elite Police in the city, so he went towards the flight of stairs that led back up to HQ.

The Doctor and Jamie, meanwhile, went over to where Cowling said the vault of gold would be.

There were no guards. Why would there be, with all this promotion business going on? Once everyone was an Elite Policeman, there'd be no need for money.

He hovered the sonic screwdriver around the middle of the squat, round metal door that led into the stash of gold. After about a minute, it opened, sliding sideways into a cavity in the wall.

"Ah-ha! Here we are..." He turned to Jamie, "Gold kills cybermen, it suffocates them, if it covers their chest units at least. Nobody knows why."

Jamie just thought it sounded like a lazy plot idea for some budget science fiction series, like the ones he'd seen in far away planets in the future during his previous TARDIS travels. Why the hell would gold kill something through suffocation if it never apparently needs to breathe?

Finally, after the Doctor had inspected the gold bars, Jamie aired his question.

"Why didn't we go back to the TARDIS when we escaped the district? Why aren't we back into the time continuewhatsit? We're probably going to die now!"

The Doctor looked concerned.

"I feel it's my duty to save these people."

"But you were going on about escaping all day just yesterday!"

A short pause ran through the stale air.

"Yes... but... seeing all this unfold now... it's upsetting. I really feel I need to help out. Now it's not just this planet at risk, it's the entire Earth Alliance, billions of people across the cosmos. We can't let them down when only we have the power to stop the cybermen. Earlier I was sure somebody else would step in, but after they promoted Darrus Kasper, who was first in command here, it seems unlikely."

Jamie looked a little sheepish, and the Doctor firmly patted him on the back.

"Forget about it. We'll make it through this. I don't think I'll be using the random button much again... It's only ever led to trouble. Anyway, let's move. Help me pick up these gold bars, don't worry, they're quite light..."

The Doctor and Jamie hauled as many gold bricks as they could, over to J Division - mining and building team. They had a large grinder that could turn granite to dust. The Doctor and Jamie dumped the gold blocks in the top of it, a large, upside-down, hollow cone. The Doctor switched it on, and the bars slowly sank down into the machine, appearing as dust in a transparent container at the bottom of the grinder.

"Great. Now we need some guns."

They fetched some guns from the armoury. But the Doctor was concerned; nobody was guarding the place. The cybermen were obviously concentrating their forces on getting ready to promote the citizens. Sweat glistened on his brow as they poured gold dust into the clips and magazines of the traditional weapons. The Doctor slipped around thirty hand guns into his anti-gravity pocket and an ancient AK-47 into his gravitated one.

He was using Plan B - to rally the citizens against the cybermen, because he knew they were watching him. With their anti-cybermen guns, they'd hopefully stave them off until the big weapon was finished. A plague suffered only by the cybermen! A detachment were probably being sent down to Police HQ right now, though, and time was running thin...

"We have to advance plans further the Doctor has discovered a weakness we must destroy him destroy his new plague destroy his weapons we must advance our plans!" The cyberplanner spoke in a hurried way, as if it was worried on the disabled star ship that orbited the dying world.

Eight cybermen turned away from a riot - many of which were now boiling up on the surface - and started marching towards Police HQ. Time was indeed running thin.


	6. Long Live the Human Race

The Doctor and Jamie rushed outside of Police HQ, where quite a crowd had gathered. Smoke rose on the horizon; shops had been looted and a seemingly constant cackle of gun fire was echoing from the other end of the district.

A large crowd had gathered outside of Police HQ. The Elite Police were spread thin, and despite a ban on citizens owning fire arms, the cybermen had already suffered 30% losses. Rushing their plans had not worked well for them. Already the military police had aligned themselves with the general population and was fighting back.

The bunch of people who had mustered outside Police HQ looked dishevelled, dirty and angry. A squad of cybermen were trying to herd them back into the street, but they weren't having any of it. The conversion chambers were overloaded with stock, so the cybermen had to wait to disable or kill. If the bodies piled up in C Division from excess, they would soon become incompatible from their flesh decaying.

The Doctor shouted to the crowd.

"Rebel! Rebel! You've seen what the Elite Police are doing, rebel now! Only gold covered bullets can kill them, target their chests!" He shouted as he threw guns over the heads of the cybermen and into the crowd.

The crowd, spurred on by the speech, began to rock like stormy waves of an angry sea against the cybermen. Eventually a cyberman was knocked over. People threw bricks at it, and one of it's pipes on it's arms burst, letting it's hydraulic fluid spray out in a yellowish fountain.

Several military police managed to knock back the cybermen with their strange guns inserted in their forearms. The Doctor and Jamie passed them some gold loaded guns, which they gladly accepted. The rattle of small arms fire became dominant over the sirens, shouting and grating metal voices of the cybermen ('Remain calm, citizens', 'Stay where you are,' etc).

The fight had begun. Far above the planet, on the cybermen's disabled starship, their cyberplanner was desperately calculating potential skirmish outcomes and coordinating the scattered and disorganized ground forces.

The conversion chambers continued to churn out cybermen, sent out of Police HQ on a conveyor and activated by the remaining non Elite policemen, appearing out of three different warehouses across town.

Doctor Cowling appeared out the castle that was Police HQ, to see what all commotion was about. The remaining cybermen that had been trying to calm the bloodthristy crowd had been destroyed by the Doctor's little army. It took some work; not all of the gold worked properly on the bullets, and sometimes the grains of gold jammed the smaller guns.

The cyberplanner, meanwhile, had just picked up that a large crowd had developed near Police HQ, and that the cybermen were being thoroughly smashed every time they tried to get through the street that led to the entrance area of Police HQ. It decided to muster all forces a few hundred yards away for a massive, final attack.

"Doctor Cowling, I'm arresting you on charges of Earth standard war crimes! You -" The Doctor was cut off as Doctor Cowling exploded into a shower of blood, his chest being ripped open as his limp body jiggled around.

The Doctor leapt back, not expecting it.

Behind him a large group of men had shot the old man. The thirst for blood was in their eyes. They wanted revenge for the misery that had been caused – now everyone realized that the Elite Police weren't really police at all and that the quarantine probably never existed in the first place, for the actual plague died out so quickly.

The Doctor and Jamie were horrified. Guns were their last resort, and after all they were only killing cybermen. They weren't technically alive, and certainly weren't still the people who's brains had been jammed into their metal skulls. Their brains may have been filled with the memories of the body they once had, but it was simply an organic vessel to power a war machine.

But killing actual human beings, it was not the Doctor's way. Now he wasn't sure how loyal this crowd was to him. Things could get extremely nasty if they got carried away.

He noticed that the newer cybermen didn't have the blue stripes down either side of their chest units and blue instead of black around their eye sockets and mouths; it was just a waste of time now to apply the paint. They weren't Elite Police now. The façade was up.

Eventually the cybermen started retreating and people started to whoop and cry. They were about to run after them when the Doctor stopped them.

"They're mustering, that's why they retreated! Help me defend the castle until my anti-cyberman virus is ready! Don't go away, you'll just get killed. There could be as much as a hundred cybermen around the corner..." The Doctor shouted.

"If we barricade the castle and make defences, we might stand a better chance!" Jamie added.

Most of the people heeded the command; although a group of military police insisted they go scouting ahead, using radio contact with their brethren to warn of upcoming dangers.

They dug up old crates and filled bags with gravel from drive ways of nearby houses and sand from the various anti-fire buckets scattered around HQ, next to fire extinguisher canisters, to make barricades. They even found three fixed machine guns. More gold was ground up. The wall emplacements were made ready for the upcoming assault.

Eventually a young engineer approached the Doctor.

"Hello, I'm Yorgmund. Well, Apprentice Yorgmund. I came to this planet years ago to help with the building of this main colony. That was a decade, or there abouts, ago now, and no promotion has come from Earth Command as you can imagine. I always had my suspicions that something was going on, but I couldn't imagine it was the cybermen who were back!" He said.

"What do you mean, back? They've been here before?" Jamie asked.

"Oh, well, it's more of a legend now. Six hundred or so years ago humanity defended itself from an onslaught of cybermen. They took several worlds, but somehow we defeated them with the aid of a mysterious traveller and his friends."

He looked at the Doctor.

"I believe you've helped us before? My God you must be old!" Then he blushed at his remark, "No offence, of course."

"You really shouldn't be telling me this. I have no memory of it, it must take place in the future." The Doctor explained while setting up a trap using counter weights and a bucket filled with gold dust.

"In the future? What do you mean-"

Suddenly somebody shouted from up the corridor. The cybermen were coming. About four hundred from the reports. The Doctor jumped. Four hundred? He hadn't anticipated that many! Jamie squeezed his rifle closer to him as he mustered the bravery to face the ghastly cybermen.

"Long live he human race, eh?" He said, raising an imaginary glass before rushing off to his post with Jamie. Questions could be asked later.

The cybermen approached from the street that had they had been trying to defend earlier. They filled the street there were so many of them. The gun emplacements fired upon them, blasting huge, smoking holes in the street. But, by using sheet numbers, the cybermen got through.

Some of the braver residents had set up camp just outside the perimeter fence of Police HQ. They used two of the machine guns, the bullets firing out with a pretty shower of gold. The sheer impact of the huge bullets killed or at least critically injured a few cybermen; the gold did the rest of the work. The cybermen fanned out into defensive positions, using the craters in the street as cover as they took out the gunners manning the wall emplacements.

A large vehicle, shiny silver, rumbled towards Police HQ on it's six, barrel shaped, metal wheels. It looked armoured and angry, with sharp corners and a slight resemblance to what a futuristic train locomotive might look like. It had a short, circular turret on it's top from which a large gun sprouted.

The shell shrieked as it sped through the air from the barrel of the tank's gun, annihilating the small encampments created by the machine gunners.

"Advance." Grated the ground commander blankly.

"They've already got to the doors!" Somebody wailed in despair.

"Release the gold trap!" Jamie shouted.

The cybermen set up explosives on the big, thick metal doors to Police HQ (they didn't want to destroy their potential new conversion factory by firing at it with the tank they had deployed from one of their secret out-of-district warehouses) The large armoured doors would receive a large blast, and this would shatter the locks allowing it to open.

Just as the explosives team was retreating, a large cauldron of gold dust was tipped over the battlements above the door; the people who did the deed started whooping, firing a home made grenade launcher, each bomb filled not only with explosives but gold as well.

Their loud cheering abruptly ended with a bang – a very large bang, as the cyber tank let off a shell destined to the top of the castle. It was not preferred, but it flung the remaining cauldrons of gold half way across the district, away from the assault. If they'd fired on the door there'd have been a structural collapse; the section above it was many times more stable.

But the explosives went off anyway, and the tank glided into a sideways position as to block off the street to an extent. The cybermen marched into the main entrance corridor of Police HQ. A rattle of golden gunfire scattered it's way out of the large, sleek hallway.

The cybermen retaliated with their own, much more advanced methods of killing. Energy weapons. Guns with large, flat disks on their ends which sprayed their deadly doses of some sort of strange laser across the room, frying their targets.

A few others had light guns; basically deadly torches. A series lenses would focus a bright light source until the beams burnt through flesh, but did not harm cybermen or the surrounding terrain (or at least only aesthetically, with burn marks and scorches). Other weapons included microwave throwers and plasma grenades.

As Jamie and Yorgmund were ducking for cover behind the now extremely flimsy looking barricades they'd constructed, Yorgmund realized he was out of ammunition and bullets.

"Damn! I'll have to go back to the supply crates..." He said, glancing behind him to the end of the corridor where the main flight of stairs were. The ammo dumps were in the sub-levels. He'd have to dash for it.

"I'll cover you."Jamie said, solemnly. He'd never used a gun before – not like this.

"Before I dash out... were you really there with the Doctor, all those centuries ago, fighting the cybermen?"

"No. I wasn't there. And the Doctor doesn't seem to remember it either. I guess it must happen in our future and your past."

"So, you can time travel?"

Jamie wondered if he should be telling this person, mostly a stranger to him, about his amazing travels, but then again he didn't see why he shouldn't, considering the situation.

"Well... yes. The Doctor has this thing called the TARDIS, and it go to anywhere in the universe at any time. I've had some pretty amazing adventures with him. There's been others travelling with him though. Sometimes, after a brush with death, they felt like they wanted to stop. I think quite a few just got homesick, too. Right now it's just me and the Doctor, and I don't feel like giving up any time soon. Though, the cybermen might retire me early on..."

Yorgmund found it amazing. Travels through time? It had been an idea in the human mind since some of it's earliest days. He smiled. Perhaps after the battle he'd be able to join the crew of the mysterious TARDIS...

Jamie saw his look, and knew it all too well. He felt sad that poor, brave Yorgmund wouldn't make it across the no-man's land that had formed on the main ground level corridor. And then he felt scared for himself, because if Yorgmund wasn't going to make it neither would he.

"Right... I better make a break for it then..." Yorgmund said, quivering with fear.

Before Jamie could object, the young man leapt up and sprinted towards the next barricade, so close to the ammunition supply, yet so far.

Jamie was caught by surprise and fumbled with his gun to give covering fire. He glanced around before he popped over the top of the barricade they'd been hiding behind.

Some sort of laser projectile went into Yorgmund's middle, passing straight through him but leaving no mark. It must have scrambled the man's insides in the area it passed through. But he soldiered on. Jamie turned around, quickly mowing down three cybermen – a lucky bunch of shots, he thought. But when he turned around again, Yorgmund's upper torso had been burnt through by a light gun. He would have died after the laser though, anyway.

Jamie knew it was time to retreat, help would come soon. If only Yorgmund had waited.

"That's it! It's ready for release..." The Doctor said, a small band of wounded fighters assembled around him.

"Are you sure it willn't infect humans? I mean, not them cybermen people?" Somebody asked.

"It will only infect brains treated with the preservation liquid, I assure you."

They seemed satisfied.

The Doctor inserted the virus into the reservoir tanks of preservation liquid over at C Division where the conversion chambers were – they were still churning out cybermen.

As the cybermen arrived out the warehouses on the ground, they seemed at first normal, and got past the thirty second tests from the ground crews. They walked on to join the assault, but began frothing; the spittle that seeped out of their eyes and mouths transferring the virus.

Jamie was closing his eyes, ready to make a break for it, which would probably end up in him dying, when he heard the cybermen grating away.

"Warning. Infected units up ahead. Open fire."

They shot the frothing units, but also normal ones by mistake, not only opening them up to the infection more easily but also making them think their aggressors were infected, and indeed mad, themselves.

Soon the cybermen were firing at each other, in total disarray. Up in orbit the cyberplanner was becoming so overloaded it had to switch off transmissions for fear of overheating and melting from the stress of attempting to organize the cybermen, who seemed to be scared, despite their 'emotions are weak' mantra that they bellowed in their grating voices when they killed another squad of humans.

Jamie whooped in joy, and rallied the remaining human forces to finish off the cybermen, who now numbered at around thirty.

"Retreat." They grated bluntly as they attempted to get away.

Meanwhile, the Doctor had rushed up to greet Jamie.

"Jamie! We did it! They're all dead – except for the ones up in orbit. I suspect there's a cyberplanner or cybermaster up their, no doubt with a few mechanics to aid it's operation." The Doctor turned around to a captain of the military police, "Is there any ships that we get into orbit to destroy the cyber ship? I heard they were banned, but not destroyed?"

"Actually, we have an orbital cannon at the space port. I don't know if it still works though."

It was a warm, pleasant day. It had been a week since the cybermen had been defeated; their starship with it's disabled drive had drifted through space for six hundred years before finally being caught in the orbit of the planet; from there the surviving cybermen carried out their plans.

The orbital cannon destroyed the cyber ship during the night – the debris could be vaguely seen from the ground, sparkling like silver petals floating in a brisk breeze.

The citizens thanked the Doctor and Jamie, after they'd wiped out the last of the cybermen. A few remained in the sewers and abandoned warehouses after the Police HQ assault, hiding, but they'd all been destroyed.

They found Ms Port, who had locked herself in the old K Division (weapons and riot control) room shortly after Darrus Kasper was promoted. It soon became clear her peaceful and moral

ideals is what the city – and indeed now the planet – exactly needed in a new leader.

Nobody knew what happened to Kertin. Some said he was promoted, others said he was plotting the downfall of the city in a cave on the other side of the planet. Others had even darker ideas, like that his ghost haunted the abandoned sewers of the city which the cybermen had used, searching for his lost wife and children.

But not long after the surviving citizens crowded into the tiny back garden where the TARDIS had landed to wave the Doctor and Jamie goodbye as they de-materialized back into the time vortex, after the city had been weeded and re-built, after contact was re-established with Earth, after it had become a successful trading post, the legends died away and in just thirty years people were once more ignorant of the cybermen, scoffing at the now widely varying tales of the elitemen or the cybolice.

But one day, seventy-four years and nine months on the day of the cybermen's open assault on the then remaining city, something flickered and sparked. Something lifted out of the still darkness of the disused sewer. _Where am I? _It thought to itself. It tried contacting the cyber ship in orbit; nothing.

It remembered how an infection had swept across the city and how he had lost his wife and children in it. And then it turned out to be a clever plan devised by a dying cyberplanner. Was that pride he felt, for his new race?

But he could hear the muffled sounds of bustle and cars rumbling by overhead, and he noticed the cybermen had failed. He may very well have had been the last of his race.

But he stood up. There were other cyberman corpses flung around the sewer. But were they really corpses? He went over to one. He identified it as being the ground commander. He opened the panel in the back of it's metal skull to awaken it once more...

**A/N: Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. I'll be writing a 1****st**** Doctor and 3****rd**** Doctor story as well, about the same length as this. Please leave a review, it really helps a lot!**

**kthxbai**


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